Just as the Subaru BRZ stretches the sports car concept in one direction, so, too, the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 expands it in another. This is a seriously large car, measuring 190.4 inches in overall length on a wheelbase of 112.3 inches. You can feel every one of this car's 4120 pounds as if you had carried them yourself to the ZL1's assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario.

So what can you say about a 580-hp car? That sometimes 500 hp just isn't enough? As you'd expect, the ZL1 is very quick, as only something capable of tearing through the quarter mile in twelve seconds can be. Yet the miracle of the Camaro ZL1 is your ability to control it. It's not refinement we're talking about (although it indeed is wonderfully refined), but instead the ability to command 580 hp and make use of so much muscle in appropriate circumstances. That is to say that you can look out of the ZL1's windshield at the dragway or racetrack and think to yourself, "I have a dead-solid, 50/50 chance of making it through this without bursting into a ball of flame." We could go on about the miracle of the supercharged V-8, a powerplant as stout as any crate engine from GM Performance Parts. We could go on about the chassis, which actually rides more comfortably than any lesser Camaro when you dial the mode for the adaptive dampers to the Tour setting. We could say that this car is so drivable even with the six-speed manual transmission and the heavy-effort clutch pedal that the oldest and most feeble of us (yr. obt. svt.) was able to negotiate three hours of bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic in L.A. without harming either himself or anyone else. But what you really want to know is what it's like to engage launch control and feel the 305/35YR-20 Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar G:2 rear tires hook up at the starting line with barely a scratch, or what it's like to lean on the throttle coming out of a corner and feel the car simply rush forward without a stutter as the electronics modulate engine torque 1000 times per second. Well, this particular Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 carries a sticker price of $59,240. Anyone can buy one.